1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to floor mats for automobiles and more particularly to floor mats which will not slide about the floor of the automobile during their use therein.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,166, entitled Floor Mat Construction, issued to John W. Chen on Sept. 20, 1974, teaches a floor mat construction which is especially suitable for use in the interior of automobiles. Each floor mat includes a tray, a grate and fastening devices for removably securing the grate in a desired position over the tray. The tray is formed with internal partitions which define a plurality of open-top compartments that are formed to hold mud, water and the like in a fixed area against splashing. A grating is formed to fit over the tray and to completely cover the partitions therein. The grate is formed with tapered sides and terminates in knife-like upper edges. The whole floor mat construction is preferably formed of tough, light-weight resilient material such as rubber or rubber compositions. The grating provides a larger number of smaller openings than the number of compartments which are preferably of the same shape.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,654,657, entitled Foot Mat for Vehicles, issued to Otto Hubel on Apr. 11, 1974, teaches a foot mat of elastomeric material for vehicles. The foot mat has honey-comb or alveolar cells in a slanting or inclined arrangement with respect to the base of the foot mat with the cross section of each of the cells increasing from the bottom upwardly towards its upper open end.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,908,027, entitled Floor Mat, issued to Eugene F. McClung on Oct. 13, 1959, teaches a floor mat which includes a flexible rubber base and a plurality of rubber fabric strips which are mounted in spaced relation on the base and joined thereto. The base is formed with a round-bottomed grooves between the strips. The strips are arranged with upwardly extending fibrous cords which are embedded therein. Each strip has an attrite upper surface with ends of fibrous cords extending vertically from the attrite surface and projecting upward and from the edges of the attrite surface to fluff over and form flocculent mat surfaces of greater width than the width of the strips.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,194, U.S. Pat. No. 1,680,442 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,109,439 teach floor mats.
In the prior art there have been a number of floor mats for automobiles, but all of these floor mats have a tendency to slide about the floor of the automobile under the pressure of the foot of the driver. This sliding is not only inconvenient to the driver, but may also be dangerous to him. There have been many attempts to solve this problem of the floor mat sliding about the floor of the automobile, but none of the previous solutions has been adequate. A further limitation that the floor mats must be relatively light in weight in order to conserve fuel compounds the difficulty of finding a solution to this problem.
The problem of floor mats sliding about the floor is not limited to their use in automobiles. This problem occurs with throw rugs in the home. The use of a velcro-type fastening system on the bottom of the floor mat and the floor is an apparant solution. The difficulty with the use of a velcro-type fastening system is that the velcro-fastening system provides too much fastening capabilities and makes it difficult to remove the floor mats or the throw rugs from the floor in order to clean them.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,461,511, entitled Fastening Apparatus, issued to Joseph Perina on Aug. 11, 1970, teaches a first member having a plurality of hooking elements on a surface and a second member having a plurality of complementary hooking elements on an opposing surface.
Among the floor mats of the prior art is a floor mat having a base formed out of compounded tire rubber which has a raised design such as series of longitudinally disposed ribs that form grooves for collecting dirt and providing drainage and which a plurality of bristles which is electrostaticly flocked onto the top surface of the base and permanently bonded to the raised design.